Figure 1.

Strategy for patterning two different cell types to a substrate. The method starts with a surface that is patterned into regions that promote cell attachment (i.e., regions coated with extracellular matrix proteins) and regions that are inert to cell attachment, but that can be converted to promote attachment by the application of an electrical potential. After cells attach to the first set of regions, the inert set of regions can be activated electrically so that a second cell population can attach, generating a patterned coculture.